I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dispensing device of portable terminals for acquiring product data in a shopping centre. The invention also relates to an integrated system for dispensing portable terminals in a shopping centre and to an integrated system for selling products through the use of portable terminals for acquiring the product data.
Preferably, but not exclusively, the terminal dispensing device of the present invention is adapted to be used in medium-large sized shops for the purpose of realising a self-service shopping system, and in particular, a self-scanning shopping system.
In the following description and claims, the expression “self-service shopping system” refers to a shopping system wherein the customer directly takes the products he intends to buy from the shelves of the shopping centre and puts them into a trolley or basket; then, he goes to a checkout counter where an operator of the shopping centre passes said products one by one on an optical detector for reading its optical code, so as to finally compute the total amount to be paid.
II. Related Art and Other Considerations
The expression “self-scanning shopping system” refers to a self-service shopping system wherein the optical code reading is not carried out by the operator of the shopping centre assigned to the checkout counter, but by the customer himself, through a special portable terminal previously taken from a special terminal dispensing device provided into the shopping centre. In such shopping system, the customer reads the optical code of the products he intends to buy as he takes them off the shelves of the shopping centre, and before putting them into the trolley or basket. At the end of the shopping operations, the customer places the terminal back into the device from which he had taken it. He withdraws from the same a ticket showing the amount to be paid and goes to the checkout counter to make the payment after having handed over the ticket. Alternatively, the customer directly goes to the checkout counter of the shopping centre with the terminal; the latter is given to an operator of the shopping centre who, through a suitable device, downloads the data stored into the terminal, so as to finally calculate the total amount to be paid.
As known, self-scanning shopping systems allow to remarkably speed up the checking operations carried out by the checkout-counter operators in shopping centres, relieving them of the burden of carrying out optical-code reading operations on the single products. In fact, the operations often cause long queues at the checkout counters, especially at particular rush hours, such as for example, the closing time.
Devices for dispensing portable terminals for allowing to carry out a self-scanning shopping system in a shopping centre are known.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,468,942 describes a device for dispensing portable terminals for a self-scanning shopping system, comprising a rack consisting of several vertically arranged compartments, each adapted to house a portable terminal. Moreover, the device comprises an identification unit of the customers of the shopping centre enabled to the use of the portable terminals. The unit is arranged, in the shopping centre, next to the rack. The device also comprises a computer wherein the data relating to the customers enabled to the use of the terminals are stored. The computer controls the customer identification unit and indicates, to each identified customer, the terminal to be withdrawn by activating suitable visual indication means provided in the proximity of the terminals, or by displaying said indications on a small display. At the end of the shopping operations, the customers places the terminal back into its compartment, and withdraws from the device a ticket showing the total amount to be paid. Then the ticket is handed over to a checkout counter operator, who registers the payment made by the customer.
Although suitable for carrying out a self-scanning shopping system, the use of a device of the type described above implies a series of drawbacks.
A first drawback relates to the wall-arrangement and to the large size of the rack which takes up much space, thus reducing the exhibiting area of the shopping centre. Thus, its arrangement in the shopping centre cannot be casual, but it is limited to particular areas thereof. These areas must be suitably arranged to house the rack. Thus, they must be accurately determined according to the inner layout of the shopping centre and during the organisation of the layout.
A second drawback relates to the difficulty of identifying the terminal to be withdrawn by the client. The client, in fact, must first identify himself at the identification unit. Then he must move in front of the rack to take the terminal assigned to him. Depending on the position of the terminal in the rack, its withdrawal can be quite difficult.
A further drawback of the device for dispensing portable terminals described above relates to the fact that, as it is a closed-architecture device, it is not adapted to meet any possible requirements of expansion and adaptation.
The European patent application no. 98905414.3 describes a device for automatically dispensing portable terminals for a self-scanning shopping system, comprising a container internally provided with a plurality of compartments for a corresponding plurality of terminals for reading a bar code and storing the data coded therein. The container further comprises means for identifying the customers enabled to the use of the portable terminals, and means for moving the compartments into the container so as to selectively face one of them to at least one door provided onto the container. The movement of the compartments is driven by a control unit, which also drives the opening of the door once the customer has been identified. Each compartment is provided with connectors adapted to co-operate with respective connectors provided onto the terminal housed therein.
Although compact and functional for identifying the terminal to be withdrawn, the above described dispensing device exhibits some drawbacks related to the presence of the means for moving the compartments, and in particular, to the presence of sliding contacts between mobile and fixed portions of the dispensing device. These features imply significant difficulties of construction, installation and operation.
The technical problem at the basis of the present invention is that of providing a system for dispensing portable terminals which should exhibit features of compactness, functionality and construction simplicity, overcoming at the same time the disadvantages illustrated above with reference to the dispensing devices of portable terminals of the prior art.